Day 4: Flirting with Gibbons

I have a possible correction to make.

Things about which Gibbons May, in Fact, Give a Rat:

1. Raking

…Though, to be honest, it’s hard to tell.

I set off for the Gibbon Conservation Center this week with my usual modest goals: No massive engine oil stains, and only intermittent looking like a psychopath.

I’d e-mailed ahead to G. to make sure Saturday would be a good day to come by and help out. I hadn’t e-mailed her before, so in order to help her place me I mentioned that I was a volunteer who had been by a few times and that last time I had raked and “chopped some things,” which sounded better than “had a quiet psychological meltdown over how big to make the pepper chunks.”

G. said to come on by, so I guess the pepper chunks were acceptable.

…Or it could have been that the Center was short-handed. When I got there, G. and I seemed to be the only people around. She opened the gate for me and explained that a film crew would be coming Monday, so there was lots of – wait for it – raking to do.

Since my last visit, the grounds had been thoroughly re-blanketed in peppercorns. Moderate, brisk physical activity for the day: check.

G. helped me pick out a good rake, a shovel, and a wheelbarrow and pretty much left me to it, which made sense. It wasn’t like I was going to run out of things to do. Whatever you are having for dinner tonight, please put some pepper on it. The trees really, really want you to have some.

I was pretty pleased with the arrangement. I knew I was being useful, the day was cool and lovely, and the light was hitting everything at a stunning angle, making the trees look positively BobRossian.

So I wheeled my way to the picnic area and hopped to and prepared for a quiet day of being near to but ignored by gibbons.

…Except that I quickly realized that for some reason I had an audience this time. U Maung, a male hoolock gibbon who had deemed raking completely Dullsville last time, had moved to the ground to get a better look.

I have no idea if it was because he’d noticed I was new or if he’d noticed that I wasn’t entirely new or if it was just the only thing going that day, but suddenly my raking was getting a thorough assessment.

My first impulse, being a reasonably friendly human, was to look back at him and smile. That was, of course, the wrong impulse. U Maung threw up his arms and bolted to the other side of his enclosure.

(I love it when gibbons go bipedal and run, by the way. By our standards, they have really long arms, so they tend to get them out of the way by lifting their arms up over their heads. It makes them look adorably extra-startled to me. Here’s someone else’s YouTube video to give you an idea of the posture I’m talking about.)

So anyway, I’d screwed up and I knew it. To much of the primate order, eye contact can be fighting words. On our side, staring feels like just looking at – or maybe even trying to connect with – a beautiful animal. On theirs, it’s essentially like a stranger is walking up to the enclosure and saying “You want a piece of this? Do you? DO YOU?” over and over.

I refocused on my raking and U Maung took a little time to readjust. Soon he was back, sitting behind the green mesh that helps protect the gibbons from harsh direct sunlight, but close up against it to get a good look. I behaved myself better and tried not to notice the intent little shadow.

After a little while, I either proved myself interesting enough for a direct look or moved irritatingly out of eyeshot; U Maung moved out from behind the mesh.

…Though, of course, it wasn’t really me he was looking at. He’d just happened to find some very interesting leaves and rocks on the ground at the nearest point to where I was working and really needed to take a careful inventory of them right then. If I happened to be in his eyeline when he glanced up, well, that was my fault, not his. In fact, U Maung made it clear that it had nothing to do with me and I really don’t see why you’re making such a big deal about it. God.

Me, I behaved myself better this time. I stuck to my raking and got better at only looking at U Maung out of the corner of my eye. It felt good to know that, should I need them, I was developing some important spy skills.

U Maung’s mate, Betty, occasionally swung by or dropped in (literally, in both cases) to see what the big deal was. She seemed less curious about me, but bolder about showing it to the extent that she was. (Though she certainly employed the “NOTHING GOING ON! I AM JUST LOOKING AT THESE PEBBLES OVER HERE!” ruse at least once.)

I don’t know if their different reactions to me were due to personality or gender.

Gibbons are definitely keyed in to what gender the humans around them are, which is impressive to me – I certainly have a tough time with the gibbon species that don’t employ the handy color-coding that some of them use.

But gibbons know who’s what when it comes to humans, no matter what bulky clothing you happen to be rocking. Those that have had a lot of human contact, like Sasha, tend to see humans of the same gender as potential rivals or threats (which can make it tricky to, for example, go in and clean their enclosures). Betty didn’t seem threatened by me, just less curious and less shy. And less, for lack of a better term, flirty.

I slowly filled my wheelbarrow with  peppercorns and only occasionally screwed up and looked at U Maung directly, sending him flailing off to another section of his enclosure. It occurred to me that this was a lesson I’m still learning when it comes to dealing with hominids in general.

But still, I was in an amazingly chipper mood. I had a good game of look/look away going, I had hit a point where G. trusted me enough to putter around productively on my own, and I was getting to know the lay of the land a bit. For example, I was able to make a correct guess as to where to find the right kind of broom when I needed to sweep peppercorns out of the cushion crevices of the lawn furniture in the picnic area.

One couch/glider presented me with a puzzling conscientious worker dilemma: Obviously, I wanted to get the picnic area as clean and shipshape as possible for the film crew. But the couch in question was under a pepper tree branch, and that branch apparently has a very precise spot on it that is the best place in the entire universe for a bird to sit.

The two outside cushions were – once I brushed off all the peppercorns – pristine. The middle one was so crusted with bird poop that some passing classical statues turned away in disgust.

Giving the seat a really good cleaning would deprive visitors of crucial information and leave someone sitting under the Turd of Damocles.

I ended up knocking enough off that it no longer looked like Tippi Hedren had been visiting, but not so much that a reasonable person wouldn’t take the hint.

And, my bird poop interlude over, it was back to peppercorns.

A little before feeding time, the gibbons started up with the competitive singing. It stands to reason that I will get used to that one day, but I hope I don’t. Being in the middle of it is amazing. When it starts, I almost have to stop raking and smile way too much.

I endeavor to love all gibbons equally and I don’t want to cast aspersions, but I’ll just say this: Those siamangs are instigators.

The hootenanny seemed to start up in anticipation of G. making the rounds with the food bucket, which feels like it makes sense to me. G. knows the gibbons well – she’s even bottle-fed a few infants – and she’s the lady with the food, so eye contact is a different deal with her.

The gibbons are waiting by the little food bin when she arrives, but she always tosses the first chunk to them directly before putting the rest in the box. Gibbons are such natural fielders to me that it’s a little astonishing to watch. I know that eye-hand coordination is their thing, but I hadn’t ever envisioned them playing catch.

But they look like they were raised on catch. They don’t so much pluck the fruit out of the air as melt it out, like it was headed straight for their hands all along. It’s such an easy movement they almost look bored by it.

I’d moved to a different plane for my raking by then, up on the rise of the ground where U Maung and Betty’s enclosure was. I got a brief impression of what it must be like to be a baseball player as the two of them openly watched me work while munching huge bites of apple. I’ll admit: I got a little nervous and worried about choking.

(I also felt an urge to give them a little bucket of popcorn or a couple of hot dogs, so it’s a good thing neither of those things were around. I’m fairly certain both are contraindicated for a healthy gibbon diet.)

Had they gotten used to me? When G. came around again, I asked if it would be OK to take a picture. She said yes, but not to get so carried away with getting a shot that I got close enough to get gibbongrabbed.

I was careful, but had a new puzzle: Gibbons can’t possibly fully understand what a camera does, but they certainly seem to know that it’s looking, and maybe even turbo-looking.

I needed a camera with a little swiveling periscope. Focusing while looking directly at the gibbons was clearly a loser move. So I stood sideways next to U Maung – TOTALLY JUST LOOKING AT SOME INTERESTING LEAVES AND NOT AT HIM – and finally managed to make our look/look away game intersect just long enough to get this.

You know you want eyebrow definition like that. Just admit it.

Peppercorns.

And then, for variety, some leaves.

After I’d been there for a few hours and was starting on my second wheelbarrow, G. came by and asked if I’d seen the new arrival.

What you can’t see in that video is a three-day-old baby gibbon. Her mom, who you can see, is J.R., a good and careful mother. I wanted to see more of the baby, but I admired how carefully J.R. kept her little one knee-and-arm cuddled into warmth while still holding her own in that family squabble.

G. and I chatted a little and eventually J.R. moved to a new spot in the enclosure, giving us a quick glimpse of her newborn – tiny, pink, and already better at clinging and grabbing than I’ll ever be.

G. went back to her rounds and I went back to my leaves. I had the picnic area looking good (or at least much better), the space I was working between two enclosures was looking something damn close to leaf-free, and my second wheelbarrow was getting satisfyingly full. I felt dusty, happy, and faintly smug in the knowledge that I had Accomplished Things.

…And then I wheeled around the corner and saw what in deference to more delicate sensibilities I will call a duck-ton of peppercorns.

I thought about how many peppercorns there were left to rake and about the fact that the trees in the picnic area were still, even then, continuing to drop peppercorns on the spots I’d already done and about distant planets with no rakes or shovels that were just filling up with more and more peppercorns.

And in that moment, I understood that there is no defeating the peppercorns. There is only striving.

And at least leaving little rake marks all over creation to let the world know you did your best.

G. came over to let me back out and seemed pleased with the progress. I tried to give one last sideways glance to U Maung and Betty, but they were hidden away, already bedding down in preparation for shattering the dawn with competitive hooting.

But no matter. I had gotten a little video of them earlier that encapsulates my afternoon near their cage pretty well. Enjoy U Maung, Betty, and some excellent brachiation.